I fell into writing about health shortly after grad school, where I realized I didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of my life! My areas of interest are the brain and behavior, as well as what influences the decisions we make about our health, and how the media helps and hinders people's understanding of health issues. As an undergraduate, I studied English Literature and Biopsychology at Vassar College, and got my PhD in Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at CUNY's Graduate Center in New York City, where I grew up and live now. My day job is as Associate Editor with the health website, TheDoctorWillSeeYouNow.com. My work has appeared in several other publications, including TheAtlantic.com and YogaGlo.com, and I'm particularly excited to join the Forbes health team. Email me at alicegwalton [at] gmail [dot] com .

The 'Dark Side' Of Leadership: The Impact Of A Bad Boss Can Go Viral Though The Office

If your boss has it in for you, there’s a good chance that your colleagues are feeling it, too – and reacting to the negative energy in turn. A new study suggests that bullying bosses affect not just the victim of their angst, but the victim’s coworkers as well, making life miserable for an entire group of colleagues. This phenomenon, which the authors dub “second hand” bullying or “vicarious abusive supervision,” may also have an unintended impact on the company as well, since it can seriously affect employees’ morale and opinion of the company as a whole.

The authors were interested in exploring what they call this “dark side of leadership.” The phenomenon known as abusive supervision (aka, having a bully boss) is one of the more dysfunctional types of leadership, they point out, but it’s one that’s gaining more attention as a very real problem in the workplace. Office bullying is defined as “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact.” And this type of psychological bullying often goes on much longer than physical abuse, since it’s less obvious but can be more insidious, leaving “long-lasting ‘scars.’”

But as mentioned, abusive supervision doesn’t just affect the person at whom it’s directed – it can affect an entire office. Its presence can extend to others “second hand,” as they hear about it or witness it occurring in coworkers and friends. And if it spreads to other people, it may be likely to affect employees’ overall perception of the company they work for – and, in true domino effect, this can affect the productivity of the company itself. In other words, it’s not something to be taken lightly from a social or a business perspective.

To these ends, the authors wanted to measure the effects of abusive supervision and vicarious abusive supervision on employees’ frustration, the likelihood of coworker abuse, and perceived organizational support (POS), which is how supportive employees perceive their company to be.

The researchers polled 233 people from various fields, including bankers, state government employees, financial analysts, lawyers, teachers, and electricians. They had them answer questions about their direct experience of abusive supervision (e.g., “My supervisor makes negative comments about me to others”) and vicarious abusive supervision (e.g., “I have heard about or witnessed supervisors at work making negative comments about one or more of those below them to others.”). Other examples of vicarious abusive supervision are hearing of rumors of abusive behaviors and reading about them in emails.

It turned out that both abusive and vicariously abusive supervision had similar impacts on employees, with both forms leading to more job frustration, a greater likelihood of coworkers abusing one another, and a greater lack of confidence in the company as a whole. “When vicarious abusive supervision is present,” the authors write, “employees realize that the organization is allowing this negative treatment to exist, even if they are not experiencing it directly.”

The authors recommend that people in management positions take a good look at the effects of their management styles, making a point to learn about abusive supervision as well as the vicarious variety. “Top management needs further education regarding the potential impacts of vicarious abuse supervision on employees to prevent and/or mitigate the effects of such abuse.” They next hope to look at the effects of both types of abusive management on people in other lines of work, and within specific companies.

Do you have experience with abusive supervision or “second-hand” abusive supervision? Please share!

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Not only do bad bosses hurt the people they manage and their co-workers while they are managing them, but they have an impact over time. You can learn a lot about a manager by the debris he or she leaves in his or her wake: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2011/08/25/steve-jobs-wake-analysis/

They should have added the military to their list of employers, can’t get any more abusive than that. The best thing about abusive leadership in the service is that your subordinate cannot quit and find another job so the problem never ends.

On the bright side… Sometimes a hostile work environment can drive a person to take the plunge and follow their dreams in another direction. Sometimes they find themselves happier than ever as a result.

In my previous job I had a severely hostile boss. It got to the point where I would wake up on a Monday, and beg for Friday to get there. Besides the negative atmosphere and the heavy emotional toll that it took on me, I was physically suffering from ulcers and back problems.

Seven months after upgrading to a new – and totally unrelated job, I am the happiest I’ve ever been. That experience really challenged me to analyze what I wanted out of life, and what I have to change to get there.

It is hard to even call it leadership is it not. To lead is to show someone the way, not to push them in the opposite direction. What is even more sad about this is that this type of “manager” defeats their employees desire to actually want to contribute at a high level before they even make it to work in the morning. Another reason we should be more careful in who we chose to lead. Their decisions to “manage” in this way not only directly affects the person, and the people around them, but the quality of the product they are trying to produce.

Stay connected to your people and let them lead you to the culprit. I work with a team of managers and when there is a shift in the communal mood you can usually bet that someone is up to no good. Abusive peers are another bane of the business and equally as lethal. Get to it before it achieves critical mass!

First, It’s normal for workplaces to talk about the quality of peoples work. Unavoidable. If someone is falling down on the job, people notice. However, as desciribed I wholeheartedly agree with the context if this article.

Managers who do not stand behind their workers risk severe consequences which extends rapidly accross boundaries. The biggest problem being the immediate lack of business credibility created when blurring lines between the problems at hand, and entering personal territory.

What the author did not mention is that today’s business filled with ‘cross functional’ ‘matrixed’, ‘mutidisciplinary teams’ –diverse groups, so a weak or abusive manager filters accross organizations extremely quickly because these teams talk to each other. Moreover, abusisve managers frequently avoid responsibility in settings like this, relying on workers to fill in the gaps, creating a powder keg of tension, unasked questions and potential disaster, and complete risk avoidance–all bad for business.

Moreover, upper managment is often too fascinated with their own strategic thinking to understand that the value is created in the excecution. When abusive managers take hold, the delivery may be to spec, but it won’t ever be outstanding(despite all the cheerleading).

Unfortunately, in a poor economic climate, these are the managers that survive, because they are the ones who are comfortable putting their neck out for assessing the organizational dead wood. The net result is bad business climate and toxicity that tends to persist during economic recovery, not to mention business myopia, which can lead to missed opportunities.